Seems to me fish are doing ok right now - this run anywas - up to 30 million! Again, over the last 8 years this cycle has been the only run that had multiple openings. I'm not saying fishing helps runs but this article seems to suggest it does.
interesting article on Friday's Richmond News talking about :
Want more fish? Kill more fish
Not enough salmon being harvested: UBC professor
BY NELSON BENNETT, RICHMOND NEWSAUGUST 27, 2010
If the Department of Fisheries and Oceans wants to increase wild salmon stocks, it should let fishermen harvest more fish, says a UBC fisheries expert.
Dr. Carl Walters, who recently sat on the science panel advising the Cohen Commission, says DFO's current escapement targets are too low.
"The real big story here isn't so much that it's such a big run, it's that it's not being harvested at the rates it could be," says Walters.
It's an argument Conservative MP John Cummins has made over the years: Allowing too many fish to return to spawn is actually bad management. However, it's an argument that is hard to sell to the public or even DFO because it seems to defy common sense.
But Walters, whose expertise is in fish population dynamics, said there is compelling evidence that allowing too many fish to spawn has a deleterious rebound effect.
"If you put too many fish on the spawning grounds, it will come back to haunt you," said Walters, a professor at UBC's Department of Zoology.
The haunting comes in what Walters calls "delayed density dependence," and he said there is now 15 years of evidence to support that the 30 per cent exploitation rates embraced by DFO is a failed experiment.
"It doesn't seem like anyone in government realizes it was an experiment in the first place," Walters said.
DFO used to allow fishermen to harvest up to 80 to 90 per cent of returning salmon. But in 1995, fisheries managers decided to lower the exploitation rate to 30 per cent.
The assumption was that allowing more salmon to return to spawn would result in more fish hatching, returning to the ocean and coming back in four year's time.
"The evidence is now very clear that that didn't happen," Walters said.
Allowing too many salmon to return to spawn results in a boom in predators and parasites, Walters said.
Fish may not be the only species hurt by DFO's current escapement policies -- so are commercial fishermen. Walters said the commercial fishing sector has lost $300 million needlessly since 1995. While he agrees the commercial fishery needs to be shut down when stocks are drastically low -- as they were in 2009 -- he thinks DFO made a mistake in keeping the commercial fishery largely closed in 2007 and 2008.
© Copyright (c) Richmond News
How does Robert know that fish got along just fine before DFO came along?